What are the benefits of automated packaging?

Automated packaging of products can bring many benefits to your company. Some of these benefits are obvious, tangible benefits, and others are more intangible, but nevertheless equally beneficial to your company and your bottom line profit.

Automated packaging of products can mean many different things to different people and your interpretation depends entirely on the market you are in. For some it may mean the packaging of food into containers, or liquids into bottles; whereas for others, it may mean the binding together and wrapping of large sheets of material. With this diversity of product, automated packaging systems are also very diverse, and often have to be bespoke made to meet a company’s requirements.

Whilst these is often the need to package each individual product, there is also often the need to further box and palletise these products to make them ready to ship. When this process is automated, it can also be referred to as automated packaging.

Tangible benefits

Let’s start by looking into some of the tangible benefits of automated packaging:

Reduced risk of repetitive strain injury: Repetitive strain injury risks are lowered when products are packed automatically rather than manually. This is due to the fact that automation removes the need for human input to complete repetitive manual tasks.

Eliminate potential bottlenecks: Manual packaging processes can often lead to bottlenecks within a production process when human errors occur. Automated packaging processes can help to eliminate this bottleneck as a bespoke machine will be designed to keep up with the flow off the production line. With automated packaging there is also less scope for packaging errors, which in turn leads to less downtime and bottlenecks.

Improved production speed: Automating your packaging process can lead to improved production speeds. Often when there is a manual packaging process, the machine producing the product is not able to run at full capacity as the manual packaging process is not able to keep up with this level of output. By automating the packaging of the products you are then able to remove this constraint and improve your production speed.

Eliminate downtime: As with any process involving manual labour, staff are entitled to breaks. Often in factories this means that production stops during these breaks resulting in downtime and loss of production. With an automated packaging solution, these breaks no longer happen, and the machines can be run 24/7 if required.

Intangible benefits

Intangible benefits are harder to define, but below are some of the more common intangible benefits:

Increased staff morale: Factory staff packaging products are often working relatively long hours on repetitive tasks that quickly become mind numbing and boring. As the boredom sets in, the pace unintentionally slows and very quickly the production output can settle to a pace that is a lot less efficient and effective than it could be. Also, when staff are bored and only half concentrating on the job at hand, mistakes start to happen, which can then result in product defects or health and safety issues etc. If repetitive jobs, such are packaging of products, are automated then staff can be re-deployed to other areas of the business that are less mundane; which in turn creates more engagement and job satisfaction.

Increased sales due to reduced product cost: Whilst there is the initial need for capital outlay when introducing an automated packaging system to your process this needs to be considered carefully. It is important to calculate what your current costs are in terms of production speeds, staffing costs, product defects, RSI claims, etc. Without a complete picture of your current cost, and a knowledge of the added value of increased production speeds that an automated packaging system would bring, it is impossible to get a complete picture of how quickly your capital investment will pay for itself. Introducing an automated packaging system usually results in reduced product cost and the capacity to manufacture more products, thus creating more product to sell and resulting in increased profit on your bottom line.

Better customer service: With an automated packaging process the risk of product defects and recalls is significantly decreased. This along with the increased production capacity enables you to give your customers a better service. As we all know, better customer services results in more loyal customers and repeat business bringing greater profits to your company.

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